Lake Oahe – East Whitlock – South Dakota

This campsite was on the East side of Lake Oahe, near the town of Gettysburg – no, not that Gettysburg! We approached from SD Highway 1804 to the west of 83 – after passing through the city of Pierre – it is remote, but not too hard to get too.

There are several Whitlock recreation areas – West Whitlock, East Whitlock and even a South Whitlock resort. East is by far the least populated of the ones there when we visited. Quite possibly due to the scarcity of facilities there.

With only the most basic of toilets, and no showers, you need to be willing to rough it, but it is certainly a lovely location. Apart from a little noise – nothing too loud – from people getting their fishing boats in or out of the lake it was very quiet.

A good alternative to a shower was that pretty good swimming was available. The water was nice and cool, which was great since it was a very hot afternoon. I’d recommend swimming with some kind of water shoes, as there are lots of rocks in the water close to shore, but they thin out once you get a few feet out. You just need to be careful not to tread on anything sharp while entering and exiting the water, something we all managed to do successfully.

Like many campgrounds, there were quite a few biting flies around. An added benefit of the cold swim was that afterwards the flies seemed to lose interest in stinging me. This was some welcome relief!

While not really a destination campground, it was decent value for ten dollars for the night. The view was lovely, and the availability of a nice swimming spot combined with the lack of crowds makes it a nice place to setup your tent or RV for the evening.